Minutes of the monthly meeting of the Iowa City Amateur Radio Club, held January 12, 2022, 7:00 PM, at the Pizza Ranch in Iowa City, Iowa

Business discussed at the December 2021 meeting included the legal status of the club filing, and looking for a new place to meet. It was noted that we need a meeting place for February and March, 2022.

Old business discussed at the January 2022 meeting: We need to ascertain our status with the Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit organization so we can file for tax-exempt status. Member John Nichols, KFØHES, volunteered to research this issue and to make a report at the February meeting. There is currently no mention of the ICARC in the federal database of tax-exempt organizations.

New business: The Iowa City Amateur Radio Club is in good standing with the Iowa secretary of state. We need to change our registered agent to John Kauble, K0GH, as he is currently the club trustee, although he is not active presently.

EchoLink update: our club needs an EchoLink node number.

We may need to find a new meeting place. The pastor of the Sanctuary Church has offered to let us meet in the church. This location, however, is not very convenient.

Our club might collaborate with the University of Iowa on a fusion center repeater. We have no such working infrastructure currently. The question is, should we replace one or add one? George, KFØAWG, reported that we have lots of options, and it may be best to replace the existing repeater with a fusion center repeater, which would allow us to add capabilities. At the next net, there will be a survey of which repeaters are used most often. Jeff stated that many Sunday net participants are not from Iowa City, and that people are more interested in using Cedar Rapids receivers. We need to find out the current costs.

Our current repeater is commercial grade; the tower belongs to a business. John, KØGH, has been letting us use his tower. We formerly had a tower on top of Rienow Hall at the university, but we were not allowed to continue using it because we are not formally associated with the university – the university will not let non-university organizations put repeaters on buildings.

The program for our February meeting will be about repeaters.

Zach Johnson, of the University of Iowa Amateur Radio Club, will be teaching classes this spring.

The meeting ended with a presentation from Craig Fastenow, KØCF, on his history of being involved in amateur radio. Craig was first licensed in 1959.

Respectfully submitted,

John Nichols, KFØHES, ICARC secretary

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